WRA urges action on Great Wall, Midtown Mall after owners miss deadlines
Photo | Grant Welker
Midtown Mall on Worcester's Front Street has a new owner that, as its previous one, has a history of building code violations.
Photo | Grant Welker
The building housing the Great Wall Chinese restaurant has been targeted for eminent domain by the city.
With no status updates from either owner of the Great Wall building or the Midtown Mall, the city is taking aggressive action and pursuing eminent domain of the two properties.
The Worcester Redevelopment Authority voted Thursday to send owners of the properties letters informing them in the absence of the requested status reports by next Thursday’s meeting, the agency will seek eminent domain.
The action was prompted by WRA members Sumner Tilton, Jr. and Michael Angelini, who revisited the topics just before the conclusion of the meeting after the board moved on from the first agenda item without taking action.
“I would go forward and continue to go forward until these people take us seriously and come in and talk with us and tell us what they can afford,” Tilton said. “If they don’t show up or come up with that kind of information, I think we have no choice but to proceed right to the end and take the property by eminent domain.”
The city has threatened taking both properties, but has held off as owners of both buildings work to renovate and rehabilitate the blighted buildings.
The Great Wall restaurant building and upper floor apartments at 521 Main Street has been closed since 2017 after a wall became damaged and had to be replaced. Owners have recently been active in repairing the building, but failed to appear at the WRA’s Thursday meeting, as the city’s redevelopment agency requested.
Similarly, Midtown Mall owner and Worcester landlord Felicio Lana failed to submit a status report detailing his work at the Front Street property, which he purchased for $4 million in May.
Lana told the WRA last month he has already spent $200,000 on renovations and was seeking a partner for a redevelopment project.
However, the WRA has long been frustrated with the stagnant property and has given Lana a short leash.
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